Damaged Goods ~ A 5sos Lashton story

Chapter 9

"What do you mean he's too skinny?" Calum asked.

Ashton peeled himself off of Michael.

"I went upstairs into his room for... fuck, I don't even fucking know. But I get up there and he's standing in this fucking towel and he just was so small. I could see his ribs. I could see all of his bones." Ashton tried screaming but he could barely even whisper.

Michael and Calum were both scared. What did Ashton see?

"What was he doing?"

"I don't know," Ashton said as he shook his head. Don't cry. Don't cry. Don't cry. His voice was high and scratchy. He can't stop seeing the image of Luke standing there with his towel.

Ashton was angry and confused. What does this mean? Where does everyone go from this? How do they fix this?

Too many fucking questions.

Meanwhile, Calum was sprinting up the stairs. His best friend.... what was he gonna see when he walked in? Would he see what Ashton saw moments ago?

No, when Calum opened the door Luke was in his sweats; he was sitting on his bed with his hands above his head. Small sobs were barely heard although Luke's body was visibly shaking.

Calum took a minute to try to see what Ashton saw. Luke was small, but still thickish in all the sweats.

"Luke?" Calum asked.

A small but firm, "Go away," was barely heard.

Hearing Luke say that was like Luke speaking in a foreign language. Never had Luke once told Calum to "Go away". Even though he didn't want to get attached, Luke tried keeping people close to him, not emotionally but physically. Because if you're alone you're vulnerable, and if you're vulnerable you're attacked.

"Luke," Calum repeated.

This time Luke lifted his head, exposing the once hidden red eyes that were held shut for so long. His face was wet and small tear-tracks were seen on his cheeks.

"What?" Luke sniffled.

Calum crawled into Luke's bed and gestured for Luke to lay down, "Are you okay?"

Calum knows Luke is far beyond okay, but he has to hear what Luke has to say.

"I'm fine," he mumbled into Calum's chest.

Calum shook his head.

"Remember when you moved into my house and we were jumping on the trampoline and you fell off and you busted your head?"

"Yeah." Luke chuckled. "Yeah, I remember. How could I forget?"

"That day, you said you were fine. You said that you would be okay but my mom ended up driving us to the E.R. so you could get stitches. You weren't fine, Luke, and you aren't fine now."

Luke responded by crying harder into Calum's chest. This story was just supposed to be a fun memory for Luke, not a reminder that everything is ruined. Everyone is going to make him eat now. Everyone is going to shove food down his throat.

"I don't want to take another drive to the emergency room and not know if I'll be able to walk back out with my brother. It was scary the first time, I don't know if I can do it again."

Luke sobbed for hours and hours. Michael and Calum eventually began to switch and take shifts between watching Ashton and Luke.

-

Michael checked his watch.

4:48 am

Fuck, he thought. He walked into the kitchen and started the pot of coffee.

When's the last time he had seen Luke eat?

-

Luke tilted his head back in laughter at the joke that Ashton just told. It was break time from recording and all four boys were gathered around a table.

Then suddenly it was just Luke and Ashton swimming in a pool. Luke's stomach was normal and cute as the rest of his body.

"Can I kiss you?" Ashton asked.

Luke nodded, "Of course you can, babe."

When he kissed Ashton, it undeniably felt amazed. He would never get used to touching Luke's plush, pink lips.

Everything was so clichéd and undamaged.

Luke was healthy.

And the feeling of Luke being in Ashton's arms was perfect.

But the feeling of Luke being in Ashton's arms was a dream. So when Ashton opened his eyes he was disappointed.

Everything set in and Ashton could see Luke's body in his head again

Michael was in the kitchen making coffee. Ashton watched him for approximately thirty seconds before getting up the courage(?) to actually talk.

"Do you think he's gonna be okay?" He asks.

Michael jumps, "Shit, Ashton. You scared me."

Ashton just hummed in response.

Michael sighed, "I don't know, Ash. I really hope he is."

"You didn't see him, did you? You didn't see him without any clothes."

"No, I didn't. When I walked in Calum was in there trying to comfort him and he had his sweats on."

"Those stupid sweats." He mumbled. After a moment of silence Ashton continued, "I keep trying to.. not see him. But all I can see is his bones. The image just stays imprinted in my head and it won't go away, I just want it to go away."

Don't cry. You've been crying all night, the last thing you should do right now is cry.

Michael walks around the island to Ashton's chair. He wraps his two arms around Ashton's stomach and this time Ashton mirrored the gesticulation.

"It will be okay soon."

-

When Luke wakes up at five in the morning he gets scared again. Calum and Michael are both gone so he's all alone.

Fear begins to rome through his body as he throws the covers off of his body.

They're going to want to talk. They're going to want to take Luke off of his diet. Luke knows that it's unhealthy, but he's so tired of being fat that health doesn't matter.

They're going to make him get fatter. Couldn't they see why Luke was doing this?

He regrets every step he takes down the stairs. But when he gets to the bottom he stops in his place. Everyone is sleeping in the living room; Calum on the couch, Michael on the recliner, and Ashton cacooned on a palate on the floor.

It was good that everyone was asleep because that means that Luke didn't have to talk yet.

Instead of going back upstairs he climbs underneath Ashton's thick cover on the floor and falls back into a dreamless sleep.

-

When everyone wakes up again Luke is gone- well, out of the living room. He was actually upstairs taking a shower.

Was he taking a shower? Or was he in there committing suicide? No one knew what he was doing just like no one knows what he's doing right now.

Ashton out of all the blankets and walked upstairs. He knocked on the bathroom door twice.

No response.

He knocked three more times.

No response.

"Luke?" He called out.

By this time Michael and Calum were both standing behind Ashton.

"Luke open up." Michael shouted.

Ashton gestured for everyone to move back.

One...

Two..

Three...

Ashton collides with the door as it goes flying off of it's hinges.

Luke is sitting next to the toilet with his head in his knee's and puke positioned in the toilet.

"Luke... What did you do?"

Calum turns the water off and Michael unplugs Luke's iPod from the speakers. Luke just shakes his head constantly as Ashton lifts him up and carried him downstairs.

He left Luke on the couch for the other boys to attend while he goes back to the bathroom to clean up the mess. He flushed the toilet and laid towels down where the bathtub had over-flowed.

"What are you doing to yourself, Lukey?"

Ashton rubbed his eyes to get rid of the water. He has to make Luke eat. Should he cook breakfast?

Yes, he should cook breakfast. But what would he cook? What did anorexic people eat?

They don't eat anything.

He can't cook lasagna because that's too heavy. (Ashton may have stupid thoughts but he's not a complete dumbass.)

Ashton runs downstairs and turns the stove on. He grabs two eggs from the fridge and fries them on the pan.

Luke's eyes wonder toward to the kitchen. Ashton was making eggs, great. Just as he suspected: everyone is going to shove food down his throat.

Luke turned around to see Calum and Michael still asleep on the furniture.

"Luke, I made you eggs and I want you to eat them." Ashton demanded.

"No." Luke declined, crossing his arms.

"Yes." Ashton was strong and Luke was light, therefore, Ashton was able to carry him to the kitchen.

Luke tried to resist, he even went limp, but as stated before, Ashton is stubborn. So eventually Ashton just picked up Luke and set him in the kitchen chair next to the island.

"I don't want to fucking eat," Luke said through his teeth. His facial expression clearly illustrates that he was pissed off.

"I didn't ask." Ashton said harshly.

That was too harsh. I'm supposed to be nice.

Ashton tried with a different approach, "Please, Luke? You can't continue to not eat, we care to much about you to see you waste away. At least eat half for me?"

Luke wouldn't of done it if it weren't for Ashton. Probably not even for Calum or Michael. Luke would run around the world for Ashton, and eating a small plate of eggs seemed a lot easier than that.

So Luke hesitantly stabs the fork in the egg, put it in his mouth, and chewed a ridiculous amount of bites to make the egg bits smaller and smaller. Ashton watched Luke with every move he made.

"Will you stop watching me, please?"

Luke may love Ashton, but the second thing he hates most (first being eating) is being stared at. He already feels insecure, so he doesn't need any stares to remind him.

"What? Oh, yeah, sorry. I just- I don't know." Ashton was flustered for no apparent reason, Luke was just all Ashton wanted to see.

They sat there for thirty minutes with Luke taking unnecessarily small bites.

This is pure torture for Luke. He hated eating and puking and now he hates eating and not puking. It would've been such a perfect night if Luke didn't forget his damn clothes.

But Luke could feel the puke crawl up his throat so he runs to the bathroom as the eggs crawl up his throat.

His throat feels raw and his teeth are yellow. This never would have happened if he was just skinny to begin with.

"Luke?" Ashton leant down and sat on the floor next to Luke.

"Talk to me, Lukey." Ashton pleaded. "Why won't you eat?"

"I do eat, Ashton." Luke closed his eyes and rested his head on Ashton's arm that was between the wall of the back Luke's neck. They were both sitting on the bathroom floor with their backs on the face of the wall.

"Not enough, baby." Ashton didn't mean to say babe but it slipped so he hurries to say something else. "You're too skinny, Luke."

"I'm not skinny. I'm anything but skinny." Luke would've been more mad if he could see past Ashton calling him baby.

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Luke snapped.

"You're not fat, Luke. I don't know how you ever thought that. I thought you were the thinnest out of all of us."

Luke just huffed in response. He's fat. Everyone knows that he's fat. So everyone should just stop lying.